I build most of my own furniture. I'm not a carpenter by any means, so the stuff I build is pretty simple and straightforward. Unfortunately, I never thought to take any pics of the projects in progress. So far, I've built:

-- Entertainment center-- Drawing table-- 2 shelf units (companion pieces to entertainment ctr) for CD/DVD/VHS storage-- 2 shelf units for general storage-- Bookshelf that goes over the door and down one side (like an upside-down L)-- Computer chair (car seat with built-in kbd/mouse/jstick tray and armrests)-- Subwoofer box for the home audio system

And then there's the project car... definately a loooooong term project.

I'm just about finished with my case painting project using your wonderful painting guide. I was thinking about doing the same thing to the roof and trunk lid of my car, as they have this horrible clear coat peeling thing going on. I can't seem to find any matching paint, though, and I'm running out of time before semester starts. It would be much easier to do something like this in my father's garage than it would be at my small apartment down at school

^That's a friends website. I'm gonna pimp that for him, because he's building a seriously razz little racing car with his dad.

My current project is turning a Dell Dimension V400c into a small music server/ADSL router. It's currently in pieces taking up a lot of my room.If the weather was better I'd go out and power-wash all the crap off the chassis, but it's pretty dull outside so I'm just gonna play GTA: Vice City instead

Hey Chris, you reminded me that my buddy will be selling MINT 1984 Mazda RX7 GSL w/ LOW Original MILES. I think for $6K. If you know any serious rotary enthusiasts looking for one, its worth the trip. drop me an email

Boy, this sounds familiar. I got my grubby mits on a 2.8 V6 from one of my Central Florida Fiero Club buddies (only $150 for a complete running motor!) and tore it apart. A Chevy Lumina in the junkyard was nice enough to donate its crankshaft, so I could bore/stroke my 2.8 to 3160cc. There are a handful of other goodies going into this engine, too. I'm hoping to have the engine completed by this fall.

quote:Originally posted by ffieroboy:Boy, this sounds familiar. I got my grubby mits on a 2.8 V6 from one of my Central Florida Fiero Club buddies (only $150 for a complete running motor!) and tore it apart.

Not to thread hijack, but did you do the swap from top or pull the cradle from the bottom? I've only ever done 4 cylinder rebuilds from the top... this is my first full swap.

I am currently working on a light organ and a wave organ. I have planned a more efficient PWM circuit. I do have a few more ideas for adding extra features to my case , such as a fan silencer (based on a noise canceller) and a fan speed controller (PWM). I am building a front mounted diagnostic LED display , an LCD display and an improved cigarette lighter mod. I have completed the LED CPU usage meter and I am now trying to design a binary to hex convertor for a diagnostic kit I'm putting together....

7-Zark-7: He dropped the whole shebang (engine, tranny, cradle) out the bottom, with the back end of the car hoisted up in the air. I'm probably going to install the engine through the bottom as well, since I'll be refurbishing the cradle and tranny anyway.

I've heard of people swapping engines through the top. It must be tricky, though. The engine compartment doesn't leave much room for error.

Hey, BTW are you familiar with the Pennock's Fiero Forum? It's a message board devoted to our neat little cars. Alot of very knowledgeable people hang out in the forum. I'm registered as Blacktree over there.

Just to keep things relatively on topic, here's a shot of my computer chair.

I built it from plywood, 1x4" boards, and wooden dowels. The monitor stand is a piece of 4x4" lumber. The kbd/mouse/jstick tray hinges up and to the right to provide ingress/egress. The seat came from a Pontiac Fiero.

I'm in the process of selecting a new duplex water strainer for my Power Plant's uber Water Cooling system

While clams and seaweed aren't really concerns for PC water-cooling guys, we need some heavy duty ($25,000+) strainers that allow the plant to run continuously while still being able to clean the strainers.

My latest is this 3 axis CNC table built almost entirely from old printer parts:

It's the only dremel I own. And it's being replaced because it's just not enough for much of anything. Heh, actually it's being replaced with a 45W CO2 laser so I can cut acrylic in house instead of dealing with everyone elses screw ups. Already have the laser tube and mirrors, building a power supply for it, radiator off my parents old air conditioner system, and a bead on a water pump, so all I'm really short is focusing optics. Accurate to 0.005" and no measurable backlash. Controlling computer is an old K5 system, controller is phase control darlington array setup right off the parrallel port. Motors draw about 2 amps each when in half step so as you can imagine the motor power source is pretty beefy: 22amp @ 12.4v

speaking of 84 RX-7s and projects, p0sta1 just got one. Things keeping it from being mint: carb needs to be rebuilt (quite a job, but doable), window motors need the brushes cleaned (been sitting in a garage for a couple months) and there's a slice on the interior door panel leather on the drivers side. Other than that the car is in perfect shape. No rust, origional paint (flawless, I'm talking new car flawless) brand new alternator, brand new battery even, new belts, some new hoses (we're planning on replacing the rest ourselves) and the car was generally very well maintained (save the carborator). Just under 100k miles. Paid a lot less than $6k for it too.

Right now it's guzzling gas, idles rough and has no real low end power but that should change in a couple weeks once we get a rebuild kit. (having a friend help us out with it this first time seeing as that thing is nightmareish.)

As for me, I do a little woodworking. Last two things I did were a TV Stand for the WEGA in the living room, and a new vanity (sans sink) for the bathroom. Now that it's nice enough to work outside, I'll probably get some new earprotection and start learning how to use the router I got this past X-Mas. I have this idea of rebuilding my old Thinkpad 390e into an end table as sort of a control console/program guide in the living room. I just need to figure out how to extend the ribbon cable for the LCD.

quote:Originally posted by Krono:Damn, Spiv, what does a semi-DIY CO2 laser like you're building cost? That would a be a cool toy

Table cost me about a total of $30 in surplus printers (some free, some not much more than that). That's a lot of searching around though, and of course the whole project is a huge amount of work in general. I've got about $50 in the table itself without dremel, power supply, and of course the laser tube. You'd really have to hunt to beat that kind of pricing, but it's not impossible (since I did it).

The real dollar items are the dremel ($36), power supply ($20 [ham fest]) and the laser tube ($450). Sealed CO2 tubes aren't cheap no matter what you get, but you could easily manage to aquire a low power one to screw around with for closer to $200. Cheaper than that if you have a vaccuum pump you could build a flowing gas tube from plumbing parts for nickels.

fun toy, but for the price you ought to know something about what you're doing so you can turn that toy into an investment. And of course this isn't a toy for the careless, being that you could easily blind, burn, or kill yourself in the blink of an eye. There's a minor fire hazard issue too

Kind of large thing to wield too:fan there is 80mm for scale. The whole tube with optics is roughly a meter long.

It's the only dremel I own. And it's being replaced because it's just not enough for much of anything. Heh, actually it's being replaced with a 45W CO2 laser so I can cut acrylic in house instead of dealing with everyone elses screw ups. Already have the laser tube and mirrors, building a power supply for it, radiator off my parents old air conditioner system, and a bead on a water pump, so all I'm really short is focusing optics. Accurate to 0.005" and no measurable backlash. Controlling computer is an old K5 system, controller is phase control darlington array setup right off the parrallel port. Motors draw about 2 amps each when in half step so as you can imagine the motor power source is pretty beefy: 22amp @ 12.4v

speaking of 84 RX-7s and projects, p0sta1 just got one. Things keeping it from being mint: carb needs to be rebuilt (quite a job, but doable), window motors need the brushes cleaned (been sitting in a garage for a couple months) and there's a slice on the interior door panel leather on the drivers side. Other than that the car is in perfect shape. No rust, origional paint (flawless, I'm talking new car flawless) brand new alternator, brand new battery even, new belts, some new hoses (we're planning on replacing the rest ourselves) and the car was generally very well maintained (save the carborator). Just under 100k miles. Paid a lot less than $6k for it too.

Right now it's guzzling gas, idles rough and has no real low end power but that should change in a couple weeks once we get a rebuild kit. (having a friend help us out with it this first time seeing as that thing is nightmareish.)

Holy moses! I want a 3-axis CNC! I don't suppose you have a how-to available, do you?

I've got a badgeless grill for my GTI that needs paint, but I might just take it to a shop since I don't really have the space to do a proper paint job on it myself. My car is my ongoing project, new suspension was the last mod.

I'm so fucking happy with it, even tho its guzzling gas because of that damn carb. It's perfect and only 3grand, for my first car I think I scored big. Other than that I've been working my ass off on my Film/Video AS, hence why I never come on here anymore. Don't worry tho, I haven't lost my roots, I'm doing a documentary on case modding.

Damn Spiv. I've got dreams of building a CNC machine like yours. One of these days. Where approximately did you find the laser tube? I'm not sure that I'll ever do that, but using a CNC laser cutter to cut balsa parts for models would be pretty sweet.

One of my projects that I am working on now and then is a portable telescope that I intend to bring to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area this summer. Its gotta be small enough and light enough for me to carry it and all of my gear across the portages. Construction details are logged here.

Holy moses! I want a 3-axis CNC! I don't suppose you have a how-to available, do you?

quote:Originally posted by generator:Damn Spiv. I've got dreams of building a CNC machine like yours. One of these days. Where approximately did you find the laser tube? I'm not sure that I'll ever do that, but using a CNC laser cutter to cut balsa parts for models would be pretty sweet.

Heh, no how-to and none such planned. There's so many variables to something like this I could scarecly reccomend parts for a pricy stock machine, nevermind try to give directions like "scrounge one of these." If you're going to attempt one of these and need any guidence or whatever I'm always available, so don't hesitate to ask. There's also tons of other people who have built pen plotters or small CNC machines out there on the web for examples and other guidence.

generator: For balsa you could probably get away with just a couple watts of output power on the CO2 tube, though of course more is always better. And since airplane wings and other model parts are so small you could also easily get away with scrouging a couple broken desktop printers for motion rails and linear bearings. If you know where to dive stuff like that is very common, whereas I had to dig up 3 identical indistrial dot matrix printers for this project (cutting area is about 17x17").

The truth is there's nothing in these that a motivated person can't manage, just be prepared to scrap what you're working on and build something better. You learn a lot as you go and it's sometimes easier to start over than to try to overcome impossible problems.

Now there's a project I've been wanting to take up. I'm a great lover of the heavens above but my little 4.5" soda straw doesn't get me what I want to see. I keep toying with building a custom glass spincasting rotary kiln so that I don't have to spend mucho bucks or grind glass for months, but I've yet to have that kind of free time or resources.

oh, and I got the tube on (gulp) ebay. Be really carefull getting laser stuff on there though, most of it is crap, unusable, or on the verge of dying. Make sure you know what you're getting before you get it.

I built it from plywood, 1x4" boards, and wooden dowels. The monitor stand is a piece of 4x4" lumber. The kbd/mouse/jstick tray hinges up and to the right to provide ingress/egress. The seat came from a Pontiac Fiero.

Thats a nice and simple mod. inspired me to do smothing about my "battle chair"... i think a felexible monitor stand will be nice, so you could bring the monitor close to your face, lay back and frag!

Almost finished with the first round of mods, then I'll move onto the engine. Just need a few more exterior details, all lighting (clear sidemarkers and MkIV style headlights). Probably just a chip/intake/exhaust combo to keep it streetable. Then I'll see about doing something serious with the sound, what I have now was just to replace stock blown speakers and a way to get my iPod into the system with decent sound.

Spiv, let us know when you get that cutter finished. I'm sure you could make a nice little side business cutting parts for people with that thing.

Spincasting rotary kiln? Ever been to the University of Arizona in Phoenix? I hear they make some small mirrors there. I'm only going to get a little more light with my 6" than your 4.5", but hauling around a 12+" in the backwoods, plus gear and canoe just didn't seem possible.

I'm a slut for all cars, but a Vdub is always in the garage. Currently I've got a 2001 Golf GLS 1.8T and my ongoing project for 10 yrs 86 Jetta GLI. You beat out my "creature comforts." I ripped out my radio, A/C, and Heater long time ago. Too loud for radio. Non A/C conversion to save weight. A/C Condensors restrict air flow to radiator.